Uber's future self-driving fleet will pack Nvidia chips

Whether it's trucks or cars, Uber's fleet of self-driving vehicles will rely on Nvidia chips to get it done.

Uber and Nvidia announced at CES that the two have teamed up on the ride-hailing giant's push into the autonomous space. Uber started using the company's chips on its fleet of modified Volvo XC90 SUVs, and Uber also uses Nvidia chips to run neural networks in not only its self-driving cars, but also its self-driving trucks.

When it comes to self-driving cars, it's all about data. Sensors and cameras are constantly mapping the world around an autonomous vehicle, so these cars need some mighty specialized hardware to crunch all those numbers and ensure the vehicle performs as it should. Nvidia is but one of a few different chipmakers, such as Intel, trying to capitalize on self-driving car development.

Uber isn't alone in its decision to go with Nvidia. Back in May, Toyota and Nvidia announced that the automaker would use Nvidia's Drive PX autonomous driving platform. The company also recently unveiled the Pegasus, the latest version of the Drive PX platform that is capable of processing more than 320 trillion operations per second.

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